


Good Grief

by ZenyZootSuit



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Book 3: Mockingjay, Discussion of Attempted Murder, Established Relationship, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Self-Indulgent, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenyZootSuit/pseuds/ZenyZootSuit
Summary: Plutarch looked from the shattered bottle on the floor to Haymitch's wide-eyed stare at the man down the hall, and was more than a little startled when he whispered, "Seneca?"
Relationships: Haymitch Abernathy/Seneca Crane
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Good Grief

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nihil perpetuum](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6149383) by [nomsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomsy/pseuds/nomsy). 



> Yes the title is from a Bastille song and the fic is inspired by that same song (and the fabulous fic by nomsy that got me into this pairing and is linked at the bottom), as always I am predictable trash and a hopeless romantic, do enjoy :)

*******

They hadn’t been talking about anything of import. That was the main reason why Plutarch Heavensbee was so startled when the bottle of unidentified liquid Haymitch had been carrying suddenly shattered on the floor, having fallen out of the man’s hand.

Plutarch looked from the shattered bottle on the floor up to Haymitch’s face, a question on the tip of his tongue when he saw the other man’s white-faced, wide-eyed expression. He followed the man’s gaze forward.

Just down the hall stood a man with three District Thirteen guards surrounding him. Tall, thin, dark hair, straggly beard, looking overall rather worse for wear. He had turned at the sound of breaking glass and now stood with the same deer-in-the-headlights expression as Haymitch.

“Seneca...” Haymitch whispered in a half-strangled voice.

The other man let out a harsh breath. “Haymitch.”

Haymitch shook himself and pushed the hair out pf his face. “You...” he stuttered, pointing at the man. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

The other man, Seneca Crane apparently (Plutarch was stunned at how unlike himself the man looked, he hadn’t even recognized his former colleague), snorted. “President Snow really should have known that if you’re going to poison someone with nightlock and throw their body in the reservoir, you had better make sure they’re dead first.”

Haymitch swore under his breath and, taking several long strides forward, threw his arms around the other man’s.

Plutarch raised an eyebrow. That was...unexpected, to say the least.

“Goddamnit you bastard...” Haymitch’s shaky voice was muffled in Seneca’s shoulder as the other man wrapped his arms around Haymitch’s waist, hugging him just as tightly.

“Forgive me,” he heard Seneca whisper. “Forgive me for being such a fool—“

Plutarch’s other eyebrow lifted as Haymitch pulled back and silenced the former gamemaker with a firm kiss.

...Interesting.

Haymitch broke it soon after, fingers running through Seneca’s unkempt beard.

“Taking a page out of my book, are you?” he joked, a stupid smile on his face.

Plutarch had never seen the beaten-down alcoholic smile like that for anyone or anything before. His presence was decidedly intrusive, the most recent gamemaker’s felt quite starkly, but the two seemed to have forgotten that he and the three bewildered guards were there, so he elected to stay silent and motionless, observing. Because it was, after all, very interesting.

“I like it,” Haymitch finished.

“Thanks, I hate it,” Seneca said with the same face-splitting smile. “It looks better on you. Doesn’t really fit my personality.”

Haymitch huffed and visibly rolled his eyes as Seneca hugged him again, burying his face in Haymitch’s hair.

“I missed you, damn it,” Plutarch heard Haymitch mumble.

Seneca pulled back just enough to kiss him in response.

As the former gamemnaker pulled back, his eyes locked suddenly with Plutarch’s. Before he could react, the guards recovered from their shock and grabbed Seneca by the shoulders, dragging him away from Haymitch.

Seneca himself seemed surprised at the sudden change of position, but made no move to resist. Haymitch on the other hand—

“HEY!” the man roared as he leapt forward, teeing off on the nearest guard and sending him to the floor with one crack to the jaw before rounding on the other two.

“Haymitch—“ Seneca started to say, voice oddly exasperated for the sudden increase in violence of the situation, but was cut off by one of the guards shoving a taser into Haymitch’s side, dropping him to the floor in a matter of seconds.

The hall was dead silent but for the guards’ harsh breathing and the crackle of the taser.

Seneca merely rolled his eyes.

*******

Hours later, the three of them were sat in front of President Coin. Hands crossed calmly in her lap, she regarded them with an air of displeasure.

“Would any of you care to share what happened in Hallway 25 at 1800?”

Haymitch, who sat on a bench across from Coin, line of his body pressed to Seneca’s as he held an icepack to his side, simply swore under his breath.

Seneca shot him a look out of the corner of his eye. Haymitch returned the look.

“What?” he groused. “Well _I’m sorry_ for taking issue with those asshole jerking you around—“

“I’m not generally allowed to interact so freely with citizens. They were merely surprised. Certainly not something to break someone’s jaw over.”

“Yeah? And what gives them the right to restrict who you interact with? Ain’t this supposed to be the Resistance not the fucking Capitol?”

Seneca threw him a look that clearly said _careful._ “I’m something of a prisoner of war here.”

“A conditional citizen,” corrected President Coin firmly.

“Yes. That,” Seneca echoed, expression unreadable.

“You’d do well, Seneca Crane, to remember how it is and more importantly why it is that you’re still alive.”

“Indeed,” he replied, meeting the President’s hard stare with a distinct lack of apprehension.

 _He’s worked for scarier and more volatile people than her, that’s for sure,_ Plutarch mused. So had he, for that matter.

Haymitch looked between the two of them, frustrated. “Is anyone gonna elaborate or am I gonna have to start making shit up?”

Seneca looked over at him. “They pulled me out of the reservoir after my attempted murder and in return for my life I provide them with information on the Capitol and its inner workings. Formerly the Games as well, before Ms. Everdeen pulled the cord on that particular event.”

“I wondered where Thirteen got some of its information from,” Plutarch remarked with a smirk hidden behind his folded hands.

“You didn’t change any of your access codes,” Seneca replied tonelessly, turning back to Haymitch. “So yes, I’m technically a citizen here now, or a refugee of sorts, but I double as Public Enemy #1...no, more like #4. Or 5. Something like that.” He finished with a small smile directed at the victor. It was almost…sweet.

“And do I understand correctly that you two were…together?” Coin inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes,” Seneca said at the same time Haymitch said “No.”

The former gamemnaker turned to face Haymitch, an incredulous look on his face. “What do you mean _no?_ ”

Haymitch shook his head, hissing as he jostled his side. “Sorry, sorry, old habit okay?”

Seneca stared at him for a second longer before rolling his eyes and turning to face forward again.

Plutarch chuckled. “You’ll give yourself a headache if you keep rolling your eyes like that, Crane.”

The man rubbed said eyes as Haymitch spluttered beside him. “If that isn’t the story of the past fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years?” Coin repeated.

“Yes.”

Indeed, they did behave as two men who had known each other long enough and intimately enough to know nearly everything about the other.

“I must admit I’m surprised,” Coin commented. “I would have hardly expected someone like you, Haymitch, to associate with someone from the Capitol. A gamemaker, no less.”

“Yeah, well…” Haymitch drawled easily. “I never said I had good taste in men.”

Seneca burst out laughing at that, seemingly taking no offense. Haymitch grinned, his arm resting over Seneca’s back.

*******

Coin agreed to loosen some of Crane’s restrictions, more sure of his loyalties now that he had been shown to have something to lose other than his life should the odds of winning the war cease to be in their favor.

Unfortunately that did not go over well with literally anyone else.

“YOU?” Katniss yelled when she saw him.

“Me,” Seneca echoed, wholly unimpressed.

The girl stuttered furiously for a few beats before stepping forward and smacking him.

The former gamemaker’s head jerked to the side at the force of the hard hit. “You’re welcome,” he said after a moment of absorbing the shock.

“Go to hell!” Katniss spat.

“Been there, done that.”

“You really think you just get to come to Thirteen and have all your sins forgiven because you give out a few bits of information wheneverx it’s convenient? You think we’re going to forget all the people you killed?!”

Seneca snorted. “It was hardly _me_ who killed then, sweetheart.”

“Seneca, don’t push her,” Haymitch warned from where he was slumped in a chair rubbing his forehead.

 _Too late_ Plutarch mused.

The Mockingjay fumed. “You _will_ pay for your sins!”

“I _did_ pay for my sins, quite literally with my life. For saving you and your lover’s hides if I remember correctly,” the former gamemaker hissed.

“And yet you’re still sitting here!” She rounded on Haymitch, staring at him uncomprehending. “And you...how? _Why?_ ”

It took Haymitch a long time to answer. When he finally did, it was with a heavy sigh. “How else did you think I managed to get that rule changed? I could barely get sponsors most years, did you really think I was able to just walk up to the head gamemaker and convince him to change the rules of the whole fucking Games at the drop of a hat cuz I’m that good?”

“I suspected you did a whole host of things, but I didn’t think you’d take it this far!”

Haymitch raised an eyebrow at that but gave no comment.

Katniss glared at them both, gaze eventually settling on Seneca. “You’d do all that just for him?”

“Yes,” Seneca replied without hesitation. “I would do anything for him. I would, and I did.” He chuckled lightly. “I always did say he would be the death of me.”

Katniss snorted, as did Plutarch. Haymitch, on the other hand, was not amused.

“That’s not funny, Seneca.”

“Come on, it’s a little funny.”

Haymitch got up and left.

“Haymitch...” Seneca called after him, but he didn’t stop. The man sighed heavily and was getting up to follow him when suddenly he...wasn’t.

He fell left with a sharp “shit!” and hit the floor with a soft thud.

Katniss eyed him with a raised eyebrow before she too left without a backward glance.

Left alone with the other man, Plutarch regarded him where he sat on the floor.

“Are you alright?”

Seneca glanced at him as he carefully pulled himself back into his seat. “Those blasted berries gave me a stroke. I think that’s why they thought I was dead. Half of me essentially was. The doctors here managed to restore a lot of the function but my left side is still weak. I forget sometimes.”

He rose more carefully this time and, as he successfully stood, he nodded to Plutarch. “Excuse me,” and he went after Haymitch.

*******

Plutarch Heavensbee was a nosy bastard, and he hadn’t gotten where he had been in the Capitol by not investigating what was going on around him.

That, dear friends, was how he came to be leaning against the wall just around the corner from where Haymitch Abernathy and Seneca Crane were arguing like an old married couple.

“—wasn’t you who woke up in your Capitol apartment to people saying I needed to get out because the owner was deceased and they were turning it over for the next renter! I fell asleep with you in my arms and woke up to _that_ , you didn’t even say goodbye, you son of a—“

“Would that have made it better? Knowing I was walking to my death, would that have made it better?”

“That’s just it! You _died_ , you were _dead_ —“

“Were you really expecting me to not die after what happened?”

Haymitch hissed in a breath. “You died…because of something _I_ asked you to do—“

“Stop it, that’s not—“

“Will you just—“

Both men stopped talking with a sharp exhale. Silence permeated the hallway for a long moment before Haymitch spoke again.

“I was devastated when you died. Do you get that? Do you understand that I mourned you for a year? Except I didn’t really, because no one in Twelve gave a shit that the head gamemaker got killed and I would have been labeled a traitor to my people if I had cared, so I got to mourn my partner of fifteen years completely and utterly alone. Can you get that through your _thick_ skull?”

After a pause, Seneca responded. “I was a fool for believing my career was the most important thing to me.” He chuckled softly. “It’s funny how almost dying has a way of resetting one’s priorities.” He took a deep breath, gently shushing Haymitch’s mounting protests at his casual mention of his almost-murder. “I love you, Haymitch. I never said that enough before. Can you ever forgive me?”

Plutarch heard the victor take a shuddering breath.

“...Yeah. Yeah, I forgive you for being a fucking idiot, but...I can’t forgive you your profession. You made a living off _killing kids_ , Seneca...”

“I understand.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

Seneca gave no reply.

After a while, Haymitch went on. “And I...and I love you. I shouldn’t, you’re a bastard and a symbol of everything I hate—“

“Thanks,” Seneca said sardonically.

“But I love you. I love you so much.”

Plutarch chose that moment to glance around the corner. What he found were two men clutching each other like they would drown without the other.

“Never leave me again,” he heard Haymitch say.

Seneca pulled back just enough to kiss him like it was the last thing he would ever do.

“Never.”

*******

Plutarch never really was sure what his former colleague did for a living after the war. Seneca Crane kept his head down and for the most part, people seemed to pretend like he didn’t exist. Or perhaps they didn’t know who the straggly man with razor sharp eyes was. As long as he didn’t cause any trouble, Plutarch didn’t really give a shit.

He never heard of anything occurring or being made official, but a few years after the war ended, Plutarch caught sight of Haymitch at some sort of function. The man wore a silver-colored ring on his left hand.

A few months after that, he happened to see Seneca walking down the street. He, too, wore a silver-colored ring.

Plutarch smiled. He couldn’t help himself.

**El Fin**

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh the sweet taste of self-indulgence. If you made it this far, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. Something happy for once


End file.
